Peter Carlsson, Northvolt’s battery revolutionary

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Northvolt’s management team will all don cross-country skis in March to take part in one of the world’s toughest races, the 90km-long Vasaloppet — whether they have skied before or not.

The bonding exercise is the latest dreamt up by the Swedish battery maker’s chief executive Peter Carlsson. Previous escapades have included taking top managers on a bus trip around Europe with activities including cabbage farming, and leading the entire company on electric bicycles from its Stockholm headquarters to its sub-Arctic gigafactory in Skellefteå.

“He’s got a weak spot for crazy challenges as a teambuilding effort,” said Susanna Campbell, a Northvolt board member and start-up backer.

One Northvolt executive forced into training added wistfully: “If I were CEO, I’d have a book circle.”

The 53-year-old Swede founded Northvolt in 2017 with a former colleague from Tesla, where he had been global head of sourcing and supply chain under Elon Musk. Their goal was simple: to build Europe’s first big battery manufacturer and take on the Asian players from China, South Korea and Japan that dominate the industry.

Carlsson this week was able to announce a striking sign of Northvolt’s progress from the days in 2017 when the company name was scribbled on paper and affixed to its entrance door with sticky tape.

The Swedish group revealed a breakthrough in battery technology for energy storage, using a new type of sodium-ion battery rather than the lithium-ion cells typically used in electric vehicles. The new technology, unlike other sodium batteries produced by Chinese groups, does not need critical metals whose prices are high and prone to volatility.

“Peter is optimistic and bold, he’s forward-leaning and aggressive,” said one former Northvolt employee. “But he needs people around him who are realistic, who can keep things grounded.”

Carlsson leads a type of company that is unusual for Sweden, home to traditional manufacturers including Volvo, Atlas Copco, and SKF. Though an industrial group like them, Northvolt is also a start-up whose offices buzz with activity. Carlsson still updates all workers on how the company is doing every Wednesday for half an hour.

“He’s very open, maybe a bit too open for some,” said the former employee. “He’s very much a what you see is what you get type of character.”

Campbell said he was also an unusual executive for Sweden, where the “Law of Jante” — an informal code of conduct according to which nobody should think they are special or good at anything — is still powerful.

“We don’t like people who are too bold and who try to do too big things,” she said. “Peter is as far from Jante as you can possibly be. He wants to break through the barriers that are there.”

Carlsson has ticked off one challenge after another at Northvolt. First, he found financing from the likes of Goldman Sachs and carmaker Volkswagen at a time when an industrial start-up with heavy capital needs was a tough sell. In late 2021, it became the first homegrown European group to produce a battery cell for EVs in its own gigafactory.

But future challenges are piling up. It has had delays in production at Skellefteå in northern Sweden, and customers are keen to see it start delivering cells on schedule. It is planning another three gigafactories — in Sweden, Canada and Germany — as well as expansion at Skellefteå. And it is also looking into a stock market listing, even though its lossmaking status makes that a difficult sell.

“It is a massive challenge,” said the former employee. “It is a continuous fight. But there is no other way of doing it.”

Northvolt has strengthened its board, bringing in Siemens chair and former SAP chief executive Jim Hagemann Snabe to head it. Campbell hints that this has helped Carlsson prioritise rather than be enthusiastic about everything.

“When you’re in this kind of space where things explode and everywhere you look there are opportunities, then prioritising is very important,” she said. “Northvolt has a strong board to make sure we have the discipline.”

People who work with him say Carlsson is keen to dive into the technical details of projects but can then in the next breath discuss geopolitics or top-level strategy.

While talking to the Financial Times about sodium-ion batteries, he was not afraid to contradict his scientists about the technology. He argued that if Northvolt could scale the technology and build the supply chains successfully, energy storage could end up with an order book of more than $55bn, equal to its current automotive orders from the likes of BMW, VW and Scania.

Carlsson’s four years at Tesla were “super important”, according to Campbell. “I have not seen an entrepreneur like Peter in a Scandi setting before. In terms of both the ambition level and the courage. Even on days when people told us they weren’t going to invest in us, Peter would have this complete conviction. Without Elon Musk, I don’t think we’d have a Northvolt.”